+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 16, Issue 09, August 24, 2017. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 09 CONTENTS. SECTION ONE: New references. What's new at the Web Design Reference site? http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/ New links in these categories: 01: ACCESSIBILITY. 02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. 03: COLOR. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: JAVASCRIPT. 07: MISCELLANEOUS. 08: TOOLS. 09: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 10: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. WCAG 2.1: The Final List of Candidate Success Criteria is Here By David MacDonald. "After 4 years of work, much reasearch, and public input, we've finalized our list of Success Criteria to consider for WCAG 2.1…" http://davidmacd.com/blog/wcag-2.1-quick-guide.html August WCAG 2.1 Working Draft for Review By Michael Cooper. "The Accessibility Guidelines Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1…" https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2017JulSep/0090.html Mobile Applications and Litigation: Why Accessibility is Important and What to Consider before Launching, Part 2 of 2 By Sanjay Nasta and Paul J. Adam. "…In this article, we'll look at thirteen specific accessibility issues that prevent users with disabilities from using a mobile application, thus exposing organizations to potential legal action or complaint…" https://www.microassist.com/digital-accessibility/mobile-application-accessibility-part-2-of-2/ How Icons are Ruining Interfaces By Hampus Sethfors. "Icons used correctly can enhance both the user experience and look of your interface. Sadly, more and more designers are using them in the wrong way. And it's hurting both the usability and accessibility of the interface…" https://axesslab.com/icons-ruining-interfaces/ Three Dots or Ellipsis? By Scott Vinkle. "…Screen readers sometimes announce trailing dots as, 'dot dot dot'. Use an ellipsis character instead…" https://codepen.io/svinkle/full/BdYwNE Stevie Wonder Says: Everything Needs to be Accessible to Everyone By Robin Christopherson. "I've just come across the fantastic clip of the great Stevie Wonder, world-famous blind singer and tech advocate, speaking out on the importance of inclusive design at the glittering Grammy Awards…" https://www.abilitynet.org.uk/news-blogs/stevie-wonder-says-everything-needs-be-accessible-everyone Countries that Have Adopted WCAG Standards By Sofia Enamorado. "The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are by far the most universal and popular guidelines for web accessibility…" http://www.3playmedia.com/2017/08/22/countries-that-have-adopted-wcag-standards-map/ Training Teachers to Author Accessible Content By Microsoft. "Everyone should have access to all educational materials in your classroom. This course will provide information on 1.) the importance of creating accessible documents, 2.) creating new and revising old Word, OneNote and PowerPoint documents so they are accessible to everyone 3.) Skype Translator and Office Lens as key tools for creating accessible content for all learners…" https://education.microsoft.com/courses-and-resources/courses/training-teachers-to-author-accessible-content ADA Rule Inactive Status: Impacts on Digital Accessibility By Lynn Wehrman. "…When asked how to proceed with digital accessibility if the rule release did not occur, the Access Board stated, 'Look to WCAG 2.0'…" http://theweco.com/ada-rule-inactive-status/ Website Accessibility Lawsuit Filings Still Going Strong By Kristina M. Launey and Melissa Aristizabal. "…The number of website accessibility lawsuits filed in federal court since the beginning of 2015 has surged to at least 751 as of August 15, 2017, with at least 432 of those filed in just the first eight and a half months of 2017-well over the 262 lawsuits that were filed in all of 2015 and 2016…" http://www.adatitleiii.com/2017/08/website-accessibility-lawsuit-filings-still-going-strong/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Here's a Super Quick Way to Try out CSS Grid By Jen Simmons. "…let me teach you some very basic things about Grid, and get you started with a 5-minute taste…" http://jensimmons.com/post/aug-15-2017/heres-super-quick-way-try-out-css-grid CSS Architecture and the Three Pillars of Maintainable CSS By Zsolt Nagy. "…If you don't want to be the person passing on bad code, you may wonder how you can create maintainable CSS from scratch. Where would you start? Let's look at the elements of CSS architecture that are worth considering when it comes to building your perfect project…" https://www.sitepoint.com/css-architecture-and-the-three-pillars-of-maintainable-css/ Using Custom Properties to Modify Components By Robin Rendle. Instead of using custom properties to style whole portions of a website's interface I think we should use them to customize and modify tiny components. Here's why…" https://css-tricks.com/using-custom-properties-modify-components/ +03: COLOR. Contrast Ratio in Devtools By Rremy Sharp. "Recently I've been wary of accessibility (a11y) of colour in my work, and I've known about the contrast ratio checker in devtools, but it's recently been upgraded and is super charged:…" https://remysharp.com/2017/08/17/contrast-ratio-in-devtools +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. The New Way to Test Accessibility with Chrome DevTools (Video) By Rob Dodson. "Chrome version 60 ships with an exciting new DevTools feature called Audits 2.0. " https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Q5Zp_yKaU The Talking-Head Video 2.0: Findings from Eyetracking Research By Kara Pernice. "Even a talking-head video can keep people engaged. Take advantage of residual fixations upon scene changes; vary the facial expression, subject position, and even camera angle to reawaken the user's attention." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/talking-head-video/ How to Code and Analyze Verbatim Comments By Jeff Sauro. "...We've experimented with sophisticated algorithms for parsing verbatim responses, and so far we've found that nothing quite beats the brute force method of manually coding and classifying comments…" https://measuringu.com/code-verbatim/ We Need Genuine Customer Experience Metrics By Gerry McGovern. "If your objectives don't match your customers' objectives, you've got a problem. A real problem. Change your objectives. Oh yes, in the past marketing and advertising was able to change and influence the customer. Those days are over. This is the age of the customer taking back control. That's why so many people are talking about customer experience. It matters, and the real experience the customer is having with you will matter more and more…" http://gerrymcgovern.com/we-need-genuine-customer-experience-metrics/ +05: EVENTS. Accessibility Camp Seattle (Hat Tip to Jennifer Sutton) September 23, 2017. Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. http://accessibilitycampseattle.org/ Thunder Plains Developer Conference November 3, 2017. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.A. http://thunderplainsconf.com/ UX Conference London November 11-17, 2017. London https://www.nngroup.com/training/london/ Full Frontal November 9-10, 2017. Brighton, England, United Kingdom https://2017.ffconf.org/ User Interface 22 November 13-15, 2017. Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. https://ui.uie.com/ Inclusive Design 24 (#ID24) November 16, 2017. Online https://www.inclusivedesign24.org/ +06: JAVASCRIPT. Everyone has JavaScript, Right? By Stuart Langridge. "Your user requests your web app…" https://kryogenix.org/code/browser/everyonehasjs.html Truthy and Falsy: When All is Not Equal in JavaScript By Craig Buckler. "JavaScript variables are loosely/dynamically typed and the language doesn't care how a value is declared or changed…" https://www.sitepoint.com/javascript-truthy-falsy/ +07: MISCELLANEOUS. Empathy and Leadership By Becky Gibson. "In May I attended and spoke at the John Slatin AccessU Conference sponsored by Knowbility. My good friend and retired IBM colleague, Richard Schwerdtfeger, was the keynote speaker… A recording is available on YouTube…" http://www.weba11y.com/blog/2017/08/20/empathy-and-leadership/ +08: TOOLS. Launchy: An Accessible Modal Window By Scott Vinkle. "An accessible modal window…" https://github.com/svinkle/launchy +09: USABILITY. Jakob's Law of Internet User Experience (Video) By Jakob Nielsen. "Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know. Design for patterns for which users are accustomed." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzb4mK9DiHM Four Psychology Principles Every UX Designer Should Know By Becca Kennedy. "Even though you no longer need to be a psychologist to be a user researcher, if you've arrived at a UX career through a path in visual design, you might be missing out on some core psychology knowledge to help you make better design decisions…" http://whatusersdo.com/blog/four-psychology-principles-every-ux-designer-should-know/ 'Get Started' Stops Users By Aurora Harley and Kim Flaherty. "A generic Get Started call-to-action attracts clicks, but also misleads users and acts as a roadblock for those looking to get information about the company." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/get-started/ 8 Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load: Part 2 By Malgorzata Piernik. "More ways to reduce bounce rate and make it easier for users to process information at your site…" https://uxplanet.org/8-ways-to-reduce-cognitive-load-part-2-4b0f9d8ef5ad Calculating the Cost of Creating Website Content By Rob Mills. "Creating content is just one part of a website project and in itself it requires planning, defining a workflow, getting the right people on board, time, money, and collaboration between different teams, stakeholders and subject matter experts…" http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/calculating-the-cost-of-creating-website-content/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +10: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? Accessibility Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/accessibility.html Association Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/associations.html Book Listings. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/books.html Cascading Style Sheets Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/css.html Color Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/color.html Drupal Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/drupal.html Evaluation & Testing Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/testing.html Event Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/events.html HTML Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/html.html Information Architecture Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/architecture.html JavaScript Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/javascript.html Miscellaneous Web Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/misc.html Navigation Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/navigation.html PHP Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/php.html Sites & Blogs Listing. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/sites.html Standards, Guidelines & Pattern Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/standards.html Tool Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/tools.html Typography Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/type.html Usability Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/usability.html XML Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/xml.html [Section two ends.] ++END NOTES. + SUBSCRIPTION INFO. WEB DESIGN UPDATE is available by subscription. For information on how to subscribe and unsubscribe please visit: http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/webdev_listserv.html The Web Design Reference Site also has a RSS 2.0 feed for site updates. + TEXT EMAIL NEWSLETTER (TEN). As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to the accessible Text Email Newsletter (TEN) guidelines. Please let me know if there is anything else we can do to make navigation easier. For TEN guideline information please visit: http://www.headstar.com/ten + SIGN OFF. Until next time, Laura L. Carlson Information Technology Systems and Services University of Minnesota Duluth Duluth, MN U.S.A. 55812-3009 mailto:lcarlson@d.umn.edu [Issue ends.]